Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Wrong on every level?

Is our bias in favour of industry and thrift out-dated? Do we need to adapt to a new paradigm? Chris Dillow of the blog Stumbling and Mumbling, who bills himself as "an extremist, not a fanatic", believes so. He even arranges English words in plausible patterns to advance his argument. Does work, as he argues, really now come down to a matter of taste? Should those who like it really be grateful for those to whom it is unappealing? And therefore ready to subsidise them as they, for example, go fishing?

I cringe at his every word. I can't help feeling that it's all a bit Woosterish, with simply a new cast of characters camped out in the Drones Club, but he seems sincere. Work is bad and leisure is good. Therefore the more leisure the better and such work as remains necessary should be left, rather like military service, to underpaid volunteers. Am I just old-fashioned? Conditioned by centuries of necessary graft? Or is there something wrong with his vision? Not to mention something creepy about the way that he imagines these are matters to be arranged centrally, with some higher authority moving us omnisciently around on a metaphorical chessboard?

Comments

Is our bias in favour of industry and thrift out-dated? Do we need to adapt to a new paradigm? Chris Dillow of the blog Stumbling and Mumbling, who bills himself as "an extremist, not a fanatic", believes so. He even arranges English words in plausible patterns to advance his argument. Does work, as he argues, really now come down to a matter of taste? Should those who like it really be grateful for those to whom it is unappealing? And therefore ready to subsidise them as they, for example, go fishing?

I cringe at his every word. I can't help feeling that it's all a bit Woosterish, with simply a new cast of characters camped out in the Drones Club, but he seems sincere. Work is bad and leisure is good. Therefore the more leisure the better and such work as remains necessary should be left, rather like military service, to underpaid volunteers. Am I just old-fashioned? Conditioned by centuries of necessary graft? Or is there something wrong with his vision? Not to mention something creepy about the way that he imagines these are matters to be arranged centrally, with some higher authority moving us omnisciently around on a metaphorical chessboard?